Category: 9/11 Organizer

On 18 November 2008, Lachelier and her co-counsel, Rich Federico, were allowed to visit the site without being forced to wear hoods. They were transported in the same windowless van used to transport the detainees, so they could see nothing and could not learn the camp’s location. She was particularly concerned about Bin al Shibh’s mental health.

In May 2008, Lachelier played a key role in arranging for another of her clients, Ibrahim al Qosi, to make his first phone call home to Sudan.

During the earlier, Presidentially authorized, military commissions, struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), suspects were not allowed to defend themselves, nor were they free to choose not to attend their commissions. The military commissions that were later authorized by the United States Congress, through the Military Commissions Act of 2006

Suzanne Lachelier (born 1967 in New York) is an American lawyer and Commander in the United States Navy reserves. She is among the military attorneys assigned to defend detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. She is the first defense lawyer to be allowed to a top-secret location, known as Camp 7 or Camp Platinum, where former CIA detainees are held at Guantanamo. Lachelier is notable for the legal struggle she waged in order to meet her client, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who had refused to leave his cell.

Suzanne Lachelier was born in New York in 1967. She moved with her family to Orgeval, France, where she lived until 1983. She is fluent in French and English. She graduated from Boston University School of Law in 1992.